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Why do the Brits have the best music?

acidfast7

acidfast7

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 22, 2008
1,437
5
EU
What are the rest of us doing wrong?

Opinions/Discussion are very welcome? However, best =/= most successful in terms of money/album sales. I'm talking diversity and overall quality.

For a tiny, crowded island, the British do really well. Starting with The Beatles and moving onward.

For my personal edification, is/was there a Jazz scene in the UK?

Here's an example:



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acidfast7 said:
What are the rest of us doing wrong?

Opinions/Discussion are very welcome? However, best =/= most successful in terms of money/album sales. I'm talking diversity and overall quality.

For a tiny, crowded island, the British do really well. Starting with The Beatles and moving onward.

For my personal edification, is/was there a Jazz scene in the UK?

Here's an example:

YouTube: video
Click to expand...

Maybe, it's because they're not afraid of the synth after the 80s ... like a lot of German (thanks Modern Talking) and American (thanks Hall and Oates) bands are.

Also, what happened to German electronic music (Rammstein doesn't count)? Kraftwerk and Scooter were strong respectively, but the Dutch have really capitalized on Trance (even though it was invented in Germany, and never made it to the states) and France did really well with JMJ and Daft Punk.

NIN was quite reasonable out of the US and Trent's story is guide good.
 
The real question is why do you think the Brits have the best music. This is an incredibly subjective proposition and frankly a bit naive. Brits have the best music across all genres? Well I suppose one could believe that. But just because someone believes this doen't make it true in general, which seems to be implied here.

Ahh well, since I'm "important" enough to be ignored by the OP and have it announced in his sig, I guess this will fall on deaf ears.
 
surely its all down to the type of music, as well as ones personal preference?

e.g. each culture has its own style...
 
mobilehaathi said:
The real question is why do you think the Brits have the best music. This is an incredibly subjective proposition and frankly a bit naive. Brits have the best music across all genres? Well I suppose one could believe that. But just because someone believes this doen't make it true in general, which seems to be implied here.

Ahh well, since I'm "important" enough to be ignored by the OP and have it announced in his sig, I guess this will fall on deaf ears.
Click to expand...

I logged out to read this because the "show post" function doesn't work.

My proposition is grandiose (of course it is, it's me after all), but try addressing the question. Personally, I find the American offerings somewhat weak. However, some regional stuff is really good. I loved the week I spent last year in NO. The music scene was great.

It's not a naïve proposition. It's antagonist by design, I'll get better and stronger responses that leading to animated discussion with a strongly worded question (ask any prof?). If you want to disgree, then do it, but don't waste time degrading my "technique."

I'd love to hear why American music is great. Also, Clear_Channel buying a lot of smaller Eurostations, really didn't help.
 
The real question is why do you think the Brits have the best music. This is an incredibly subjective proposition and frankly a bit naive. Brits have the best music across all genres? Well I suppose one could believe that. But just because someone believes this doen't make it true in general, which seems to be implied here.

Ahh well, since I'm "important" enough to be ignored by the OP and have it announced in his sig, I guess this will fall on deaf ears.
Click to expand...
Now you get heard.

Anyway, I agree with that poster, who shall be anonymous for this, to prevent any repercussions against him or her or it.

Again, are you sure, that something like the quality of music can be measured objectively? If so, how?

I for example love music from all around the world, and have favourite band and composers from many countries and often consider them to be good or even the best, but my musical taste is diverse, but my musical education is rather weak.
 
i think a lot of good music has come out of there, sure, but the best music? not necessarily. this is a very subjective and personal opinion that will vary by individual tastes and preferences, therefore there can be no such thing as the 'best music' except in the manner in which you perceive it.
 
I love the Beatles and most of the bands labeled as British Invasion bands from the 60s. But I really don't listen to much British music these days excepting Adele, Florence and a few others acts I really love. I enjoy rock but more alternative music (as labeled) and for me, the majority of performers in the alt genre I enjoy are Americans--so I guess I would disagree with you based on my own personal tastes--which of course is totally subjective.
 
Obviously it is subject to opinion and personal preference, by yes, I agree that us brits do have the best music.
 
We do have some pretty good music. The best? Who knows, it's subjective I guess.

Side note: Florence and the Machine are brilliant, both Lungs and Ceremonials are fantastic albums.
 
Although I wont comment of what I think is best or not, usually a lot of talent comes out of places that still have art in school.

When I worked with a bunch of people from all over the world I was amazed at how well every single one of them drew, and it was because they had art in school.

When I was in school we had an art room, but we weren't taught anything useful, we were just handed paper and that was it. There was an advanced art class but it was only open to students who could demonstrate they had skill. Funny enough almost no student was in that class.
 
I'm in Seattle and, personally, there's been tons of great music to arise from our scene. I look forward to Bumbershoot every year to check out the new up and comers.
 
chrono1081 said:
Although I wont comment of what I think is best or not, usually a lot of talent comes out of places that still have art in school.

When I worked with a bunch of people from all over the world I was amazed at how well every single one of them drew, and it was because they had art in school.

When I was in school we had an art room, but we weren't taught anything useful, we were just handed paper and that was it. There was an advanced art class but it was only open to students who could demonstrate they had skill. Funny enough almost no student was in that class.
Click to expand...

actually, I notice that today. I bought my GF an easel and "supplies" as an Xmas gift and a Casio keyboard as a b-day gift (march) and holy-crap can she play. Not only that, but at parties almost everyone can play. The music and arts are pushed quite hard here, at the expense of sciences (and the whole three-track/two-track in some "states"/ school system).

Did the US lose the arts? I had a similar "paper arts" class in a reasonably well-funded public school.
 
I think your starting assumption may be less than accurate. Everyone north of the 49th know that it's Canadian music (and Canadian musicians in American rock bands) that rock.

Blue Rodeo
Great Big Sea
Sheep Dogs
Nickel Back
April Wine
Rush
Steppen Wolf (3 out of 5 members)
Guess Who
BTO
Chilliwack
Five Man Electrical Band
Neil Young
Leonard Cohen
kd lang
Alannah Myles
Sarah McLachlan
Diana Krall
Alannis Morrisette
Feist
Bif Naked
Grapes of Wrath
Arcade Fire.

etc etc

Many of the above listed bands watered down their offerings after getting noticed by the US labels. That is, they get noticed based on their "fresh, new" sound - then they get pressured into putting out pop rock to make their label happy - so listen to their early stuff.
 
Also, as a side-note for the Brits in this thread. Don't let your British modesty/politeness bleed though. You know you have the best music, you don't need to add the "subjective, I guess" after-thought.
 
I would agree with you as i like british music more, but a lot of great bands that i listen to comes from all over europe and north america. It comes down to personal preference
 
English bands are good, but they suck when it comes to verity. So many modern bands sounds like Arctic Monkeys etc it's untrue. Japanese music on the other hand has some seriously experimental, out there stuff. =)
 
Its an interesting question.

Leaving aside the assertion that the British Isles necessarily produce the best music on a per capita basis, here are my theories:

1) Britain has an incredibly strong choral tradition. The Church may have lost a lot of influence in the UK, but many kids get their first exposure to competently arranged vocal music while attending Church. Even if its just Easter and Christmas, it can make an incredible impression on young ears. Learning how harmonized voices sound, and the pure thrill of singing as a group is something relatively few young Americans experience. If you can stay in time, and on-key belting out the first couple of verses of Jerusalem, you're at least part of the way to being able to singing Rolling in The Deep or You Know I'm No Good. (Note also in the "Jerusalem" video: I cannot imagine any similar cultural, or popular musical event, in the US, Germany, France, Japan, etc. - that quite rivals the experience of an entire audience participating in the way that is shown.)

2) Britain still has elements of a "class system." Not necessarily, these days, based on the old factors of accent, education, and family. But definitely still there. If you consider that America's greatest musical contributions (Blues, Jazz, Rock, Rap) came out of a similar "dispossessed" sector of the population it makes some sense. Kids living in crime-ridden slums, with a dysfunctional-family, and grinding poverty give you The Beatles and Tupac Shakur. Kids living in a peaceful, egalitarian, homogenous society gives you ABBA.

3) Following up on that: Britain's much-maligned "multiculturalism" has enriched its music almost as much as it has enriched its food. Just as Caribbean and Asian influences literally "spiced up" stodgy English cooking in the post-war decades; so did the influences of Ska and Reggae enliven BritPop in the 70s and 80s.

4) For all its "multiculturalism" (see above) - Britain is also a much more unified culture. Example: the final of X-Factor (Britain's version of American Idol) at one point had an audience of almost 20 million viewers. Out of a population of roughly 60 million total, that is a level unimaginable in the United States. Literally every person in Britain under the age of 40 knows who won. Likewise, the national nature of much of the TV and radio broadcasting, means that familiarity with currently trending music is far more universal than it is in the US - which tends to be highly fragmented. (ie. "Country Music" fans never listen to hip-hop; and vice versa.)

5) Britain has probably the strongest tradition of popular musical theater in the world. Not just West End shows (which, again, most young people are probably familiar with) - but also regional theater, pantomimes, and the rest. Germany; France; and Italy have given the world great opera - but not too many kids grow up singing La donna è mobile or Lohengrin in the shower. Plenty of Brit kids know songs from Cats and Oliver by heart.

6) lastly, of course, there's the language thing. Simply put, its a tremendous advantage to be able to sing popular music with English as your first language. You might be the greatest pop artiste the world has ever known, but if you can only sing (and emote) in Slovakian or Greek - you are obviously going to find your market somewhat limited.
 
acidfast7 said:
actually, I notice that today. I bought my GF an easel and "supplies" as an Xmas gift and a Casio keyboard as a b-day gift (march) and holy-crap can she play. Not only that, but at parties almost everyone can play. The music and arts are pushed quite hard here, at the expense of sciences (and the whole three-track/two-track in some "states"/ school system).

Did the US lose the arts? I had a similar "paper arts" class in a reasonably well-funded public school.
Click to expand...

I can't speak for every school but my high school had almost no arts, and no sciences. Well, we had a few sciences that were either insanely easy, or weren't something 99% of the students would use, and we had zero computer science classes.

Our school, like many schools dumped their money into useless sports. We didn't even have internet until I was a senior, and I graduated in 2000.
 
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